Chapter 1: A New Beginning

September 2024

I knew about the accident that destroyed the Ogilvie family, since had been widely reported, but I had no idea that Jon the older survivor was the rather taciturn young man driving the all-terrain vehicle in which I was having my liver and lights rearranged as we bounded over the many bumps. I was already beginning to regret the impulse that had brought me to this farm track leading into the hills behind Coulport.

“This is it, Mr Galbraith,” the driver told me, stopping the six-seated vehicle on an eminence.

He opened his door and got out and I joined him looking down into a shallow depression in the moorland. In the centre was a beautiful little lake reflecting the few fair-weather clouds in the early-September sky. The track led down through a farm steading to end in a jetty thrusting out into the lochan. Further tracks led from the whitewashed farmhouse to six wooden chalets scattered along the gentle slopes leading up to the ridge opposite the one we were now standing on.

“The chalets are numbered from the house,” the lad continued. “You’re in Number Two. It’s the best of the bunch in my opinion.”

“We eat in the farmhouse,” he added, climbing back into his seat. “Of course, you can have a room in the house if you don’t fancy the chalets.”

He had been waiting for me when I drove into the car park just off the main road. I had driven up from London taking two days for the journey, revelling in my new freedom to take my time. My first impression was that he was a typically sullen youth doing this rather menial job, probably because he had messed up his education but still expected the wider world to offer him the adoration given by his parents when he was a child.

Things had been particularly hectic in recent months; in fact, things have been hectic for rather longer than that. This is certainly the first holiday I have had since Rachel left although I have tagged on a few days at the end of business trips from time to time. It is more than a quarter of a century since I last was in the position I am now, with nothing to do but enjoy myself.

Recently, I have become aware of increasing exhaustion that I never quite get rid of. It was tiredness that indirectly led me to this little haven, hidden in the shadow of the mountains rising to the west and north. I had fitted in an extra meeting, and I was late on the road when a car horn alerted me to the fact that I was straddling two lanes of the motorway. I pulled off at the next service station and booked into their hotel, before my inattention caused an accident.

Nothing like that had ever happened to me before; I have a clean licence and rather pride myself on my awareness when I am behind the wheel. Once I booked in, I went to the food area to pick up a snack, but I forgot to buy anything to read. Rather than return, I picked up a handful of brochures from the display in the hotel lobby before retiring to my room for my midnight feast. Most of the flyers were for local attractions but one rather dog-eared specimen extolled the virtues of a retreat for artists near Coulport.

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men’, sayeth the bard: an artists’ retreat in Coulport hardly qualifies as tsunami, but it came at a time in my life when it caught my attention. Imagine you are walking along the tide line keeping just out of the water when a ripple, marginally bigger than the rest, rolls over your foot. The flyer was like that: no huge wave but just a gentle reminder that there is more to life.

I had just completed an arduous few months and I was returning to my office where I would finally have to face two decisions, one concerning the business and the other involving my family. I have always wanted to try my hand at writing fiction and, depending on the decisions I took, there was a possibility that I would have the time in future to try my luck as an author.

The next morning, before I completed my journey straight to the office, I telephoned The Retreat and booked a room for the beginning of September. Now I was swaying and bouncing down the final couple of hundred yards to my refuge for the next two weeks. Apart from clothes, I had packed two large notebooks with dauntingly blank pages and a Montblanc pen. This pen had been given as a present by a company that wanted me to do them a favour in return: I brought it to remind me that my retreat was only a brief respite from my problems.

The front door of the house opened into a small hall with a staircase straight ahead and doors opening off either side of a passage that ended in a glazed door; this door provided the only lighting. As we entered, the first door to the left opened and a somewhat plump, balding man stepped out with a friendly smile.

“I’m Phil, the manager here and you’ve already met Jon although I don’t suppose he introduced himself. You’ll be in Chalet Number 2. Jon will take your bag.”

He would, I think, have continued talking if he had not been interrupted by a clatter from a room deeper into the house. We had walked into the first room while Phil was chatting and the door at the far end now opened to admit a very pretty girl blowing out of her eyes a lock of hair that had strayed from her ponytail.

“Sorry about that! I dropped a pot,” she began, still fiddling with the loose strand of hair. It was some seconds before she noticed me.

“You must be Fergus,” she said holding out her hand and grinning at me. “I can’t remember your other name but we all use first names here anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

As she said that, her brows contracted in a worried little frown: “You don’t mind, do you?” she added with that wonderful smile.

“I don’t mind at all,” I smiled in return. “I have a daughter about your age.”

“That’s all right then,” she grinned, before the frown returned. “You don’t want me to call you Daddy, do you?” and she broke into peals of laughter.

I glanced at Jon who was standing in the doorway grinning which changed his whole expression, so it became clear that he and the girl were brother and sister. Without the sullen expression, he was as handsome as his sister is pretty. She had remained at hand-shaking distance while Phil had moved closer to the middle of the room.

“You mustn’t mind our Kate,” he interjected, moving towards the girl and raising his hand with the clear intention of patting her back or shoulder. She obviously noticed the movement for she stepped to the side and forward leaving Phil patting the place she had just vacated. She now stood almost behind my shoulder so the manager would have to walk round me to renew his friendly advance.

I had learned over the years to detect subtler body-language than that. Kate was still smiling but Jon was again looking sullen.

“Take Fergus’ bag to Number 2, Jon, and don’t forget that Elaine will need you to bring back her gear.”

“Have you eaten, Fergus? I can do soup and a sandwich. Come to the kitchen and pick your own filling.”

Kate put her hand through my arm and gave a gentle pull to start me towards the door at the far end of the room.

“I can do that, Kate,” Phil floundered. “Fergus probably wants to clean up or something.”

By that time, the girl and I had gone into the kitchen. The rest of the farmhouse was virtually the same as I imagine it was when the farmer lived there but the kitchen was a modern room of shining stainless-steel stretching all across the back of the house. In the middle was the door with the glazed panel I had seen from the hall and at the other end were bat-wing doors leading to the dining room.

Kate filled a soup bowl which she popped into a microwave oven. She pointed to sandwiches freshly cut and, when I nodded, she loaded them onto a tray with the heated soup and led the way through the swing doors into a pleasant dining room overlooking the little loch. She set a place for me and then sat down in the seat facing me, straddling the seat with her arms folded across the back.

“Do you really have a daughter of twenty-one?”

“She’s seventeen, but I do have a daughter – and a son of fourteen.”

“I think I’m old enough to be flattered you think I’m that young but at your daughter’s age I’d have scratched your eyes out,” she laughed.

“I’ll take your word for that. At present I’m trying to get to know her and her brother.”

And just like that, I began telling a complete stranger about the family part of my problems. I still do not understand why it happened. It was clear that Phil, who I judged to be in his late forties like me, had designs on Kate’s virtue but I did not share his feelings. She is very pretty but she lacks the depth of experience that would make her an interesting companion. Why then did I confide in her after an acquaintance of only a few minutes?

The only explanation I can offer is that she is close enough to Alison’s age to understand the behaviour that has recently been puzzling me. Donald was less than a year old when Rachel left me to move in with Bill. I did not tell Kate about the first year when I was hurt and bewildered, taking up the tale at the point when I finally accepted that I had neglected my family, and that Bill was an attentive stepfather and a worthy man.

I restored friendly relations with my ex-wife, and she encouraged me to keep contact with my kids once she had seen for herself that I was not competing with Bill for their attention. There were times when I struggled to disguise my dismay when my daughter turned to Bill for comfort when she skinned her knee or my son called for Bill to push him on the swing, but I really appreciated what he was trying to do and gave him my support.

Things began to change when Ali became a teenager. She was interested in computers so it was natural that she should come to me since I owned a software company. During our time together, wider topics were introduced and I realised that I had been awarded the role of primary male in her young life. I was more surprised when Donald began to seek me out for guidance; he was expected to follow Bill into accountancy, but he really wanted to become a musician – he wants me to call him ‘Doh’ but I must admit that I am struggling with that!

Bill had devoted his life to Rachel and my kids, and I felt as if I was stealing his just reward. Alison told me two days before that Bill stood for the conventional and dull in life while I represented excitement and the future.

“What does Rachel say to all this?” Kate asked, reaching across the table and giving my hand a squeeze.

At some time during my recital, Jon had come into the dining room and taken a seat at my elbow. He is very quiet, but I was aware of his presence; I carried on with my story, conscious of the fact that telling something to one of the siblings was tantamount to telling both of them. Now he nodded towards the swing door into the kitchen where Phil was bobbing up and down behind the glazed panel.

“We have to prepare dinner,” Kate smiled. “We’ll give the problem some thought, and you can think about my question.”

They rose as one and Kate swept the crumbs I had left on the cloth into her hand, while Jon picked up my plates before they disappeared through the swing door. As it closed, I could hear Phil’s querulous tones berating the youngsters.

I had risen with them, and I went through the hall and out the front door into the afternoon heat. Strangers have the wrong idea about the climate of the West of Scotland. I was born and brought up in Helensburgh where we could endure an arctic day at the height of summer as often as a balmy day in January.

When I left the dining room, I had intended to go to my chalet to unpack and settle in, but a fleeting memory of my schooldays made me turn my feet to the faint track leading out of the cluster of buildings. I was probably about ten when I figured out that the way to enjoy vacations was to leave decisions until I had looked at the morning sky. I would wake with plans ranging from lying on the settee reading to hiking across the moors; I made my decision after I opened my bedroom curtains.

Of course, you can only do that sort of thing when you are young. As an adult I have duties and obligations that require me to ignore the weather. As I stood there under a clear blue sky, I realised that I was as free as my ten year old self. My standing amongst my friends and business colleagues would not alter by a millimetre if my shaving gear was not neatly arrayed in the bathroom of the chalet; no one would notice that my shirts were still crushed in my unopened case instead of being on hangers in the wardrobe.

With a vestige of the glee I experienced as a child, I turned and skipped onto the narrow track leading up the hill away from the dwellings. I stopped just below the edge of the little cirque that embraced the farmhouse and chalets that would be my home for the next two weeks. The path is beaten earth, and I expect it will get muddy in wet weather, but it was firm and dry today with a gentle slope, much to my relief.

The little loch at the centre of the complex was unruffled by even the slightest zephyr; it reflected the sky and the single tiny cloud without distortion. I had to remind myself that this was the ninth day of September; in less than two weeks equinoctial wind and rains would likely be whipping up the water surface.

A few paces onward, I almost stumbled into two ladies sitting on folding chairs straddling the track. The elder of the two sat before a portable easel supporting a large piece of drawing paper on which she was executing the worst water-colour painting I have ever seen – and I do not exclude the daubs that I used to admire when my six-year-old daughter or son proudly showed them to me.

“Excuse me,” she offered, inclining her head to glance at me. “I must complete this little piece while the light is so perfect.”

The Argyll mountains were certainly inspiring in the limpid afternoon light, but she had managed in some mysterious way to deaden the colours, so the painting was drab as well as being poorly draughted and out of perspective. Her companion was much younger – perhaps thirty-five rather than the near sixty of the water-colourists – and was a living embodiment of the work of art on the easel. She was drab and her clothes were so ill-fitting as to suggest that they might be covering a distorted body.

She had a pad of cartridge paper on her lap when I surprised them which she quickly closed but not before I had glimpsed a crayon sketch of the view that was infinitely better than her companion’s miserable effort. She put her finger to her lips in the universal sign for silence before she quietly placed her pad of drawings on the ground, stood up and took my arm to lead me back below the skyline.

“Elaine really needs complete peace to do her best work,” she whispered, looking worried. “She seems to have survived your abrupt appearance this time.”

She then blushed furiously and began to apologise: I had a perfect right to be on the track and she didn’t mean that I had done anything wrong but Elaine could be difficult when she was in the throes of composition.

“I’m Jenny, by the way,” she finally concluded.

I felt a wave of sympathy for this woman, so I spent some time assuring her that any fault was mine. We chatted for several minutes about the view and the weather and then her name was yelled from the other side of the ridge. We returned together to find Elaine finished for the day and waiting for Jenny to deal with the paraphernalia of painting. I chatted to Elaine about my life in London as I accompanied them back down the track.

I had two folding chairs under one arm, and I was carrying a substantial suitcase with the folding easel strapped to it in the other hand. Despite my burden, Elaine grasped my arm to steady herself at every minor bump in the path. Jenny trailed behind carrying a picnic basket and her own sketch book. We were about halfway to the chalets when Jon appeared and started up the track towards us. Elaine called out that he could go back since ‘Dear Fergus’ was helping with their equipment. Jon turned on his heel and returned to the farmhouse without a word or gesture.

After leaving their gear on the porch of Number 1, I went to my own comfortable lodge and partly unpacked before I tested the bed. I was relaxed and my eyelids felt heavy, but I was saved from the ignominy of an afternoon nap by a knock at the door. Phil was on the porch hopping from foot to foot and trying for a friendly smile.

“I didn’t get a chance earlier to give you a proper welcome. Kate is wonderful, of course, but she is fatal to any attempt at organisation.”

“I think she’s charming – she reminds me of my own daughter.”

“Oh, she certainly is – charming, I mean – but don’t get too fond of her: Jon and I are very protective.”

Once he had delivered this notice of intent, Phil calmed down. He explained that the chalets had been built in the late seventies just too late to benefit from the boom in timeshare developments for which they were originally intended. He did not know who owned the complex, he told me in reply to my query; everything was handled by a Glasgow solicitor. This was Phil’s second season as manager, and he wanted to remain since it allowed him the peace he needed to develop his proper career as a songwriter.

“Kate and Jon were here when I arrived. Rather a mystery pair, actually. They don’t talk about themselves although I gather they are locals. They are hoping to make it in showbiz, and I think they have a good chance – you’ll probably hear them tonight after dinner. We’re talking about getting together, with them singing my songs and me managing the group. I really feel that Kate will benefit from my greater experience.”

We had strolled down to the loch, and I watched him as he threw twigs into the flat surface of the water. Phil is an inch smaller than my five foot eleven and he is perhaps a year or two older than my forty-eight years. I have the impression that he is trying to look younger, but I may be making an unjustified comparison with some of my friends who have gone down that road in the wake of their divorces.

When he is not talking about Kate, he is interesting and informative. Her behaviour towards me has been friendlier than I would have expected, and I interpret it as a salutary lesson to Phil that he is presuming too much. I suspected that, stuck up here with only her brother and Phil, she had given the older man enough encouragement to distort his judgement.

I told him that I was here because I was considering making changes in my life. He was interested and encouraging when I admitted my ambition to become an author.

“You’ve led a full life, and I’d rather read a novel of yours than a trendy best-seller by some kid who has only just left school. I know that my maturity enlightens all my compositions.”

He made several intelligent suggestions about how I could get something down on paper. While the Retreat was ideal for someone at his stage, he thought it was a bit too bland for a beginner. He understood that I wanted to write fiction but perhaps I should consider a factual account if only to fill a few blank pages and see how it looked. That seemed a very sensible notion since I could develop my descriptive skills without the added burden of invention.

Jon appeared at the house door and waved to us, so we headed back for dinner.

“We offer seaplane trips to our guests,” Phil mused. “You could take a trip for a couple of days fishing at a little loch I know of. There’s a log cabin you can use. What with the flight, the fishing and the backwoods ambience you should have enough for several pages of deathless prose.”